


Deciding Factors

by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)



Series: Hunter's moon 500 Word Prompts [31]
Category: The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Background Clary Fray/Jace Wayland, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28716927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell
Summary: Co-Heading the Institute with Clary leaves Jace with a bit of decision-making paralysis - luckily, Simon is there with an idea to help bypass Jace's indecision.
Relationships: Simon Lewis & Jace Wayland
Series: Hunter's moon 500 Word Prompts [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776664
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Deciding Factors

**Author's Note:**

> 500 word prompt: Dice

“I can’t pick a patrol rotation,” Jace sighs. “It hardly matters, I could close my eyes and pick and it’d probably be fine, but… I don’t know. There’s just a lot of pressure. And every time I make a decision I second guess it, change it, then second-guess _that_ decision.”

Simon listens intently. It’s rare for Jace to be this honest about his worries with anyone, and it isn’t something he takes lightly.

“Alright, so you’re freezing up a bit over all the decisions you suddenly have to make,” Simon summarizes.

Jace huffs. “ ‘A bit’ is _a bit_ of an understatement,” he mutters. “But yeah. Raziel, that sounds so lame. ‘Hi, I’m your new Co-Head of the Institute, and I freeze under simple decision making responsibilities.’ They’re going to remove me in a week.”

“Nah,” Simon shakes his head. “You’re great when it matters! Like, life-saving decisions in battle, or things that have a huge impact? You never have any problem with those. You’re just overthinking the simple stuff.” Simon’s pretty sure he’s read about this somewhere online, or maybe his high school psych class. “I have something that’ll help. Stay here.”

Jace is about to argue but Simon’s already gone, heading to his room to rummage under his bed before returning to Jace’s office.

“Here,” Simon says, placing a rectangular box on the desk and sliding the lid off to reveal a set of gaming dice, all in swirled shades of pink, yellow, and blue. “You can assign the options a number, and roll to decide. The bigger ones can be for things like schedules, the smaller ones for, I don’t know, deciding if you want apple or orange juice at breakfast.”

Jace looks at the dice warily.

“Worst case scenario, it’ll trick you into deciding on your own when you don’t agree with the dice,” Simon adds. “ _Plus,_ they’re lucky.”

Finally, Jace picks up the box and shrugs. “It can’t hurt,” he admits. “Thanks, Simon.”

Simon beams. “Happy to help.”

\---

After Simon leaves, Jace uses the 20-sided die to make the schedule of Institute duties, assigning the Shadowhunters numbers in alphabetical order. The process, once his personal bias and concerns are removed, is so simple he’s done in minutes.

“What are you doing?” Clary asks, watching him rolling a die to decide the cafeteria’s lunch schedule.

“Simon gave me these to help me stop second-guessing myself,” Jace says.

“Wow.” Clary sounds surprised. “I can’t believe… nevermind.”

“What?” Jace frowns.

“They’re his lucky set. He never even let me _touch_ them before, let alone _use_ them,” she explains.

“...why would he give them to me, then?” Jace asks, confused.

Clary just smiles. “He must’ve thought you needed them more.”

Jace should’ve known they meant more to Simon than he let on. Of course, Simon would selflessly hand them over without a second thought to help Jace.

“I guess I should thank him by taking him off the ichor duty his _lucky_ dice assigned him...” Jace muses, and Clary laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> (Find me on [Tumblr](http://bytheangell.tumblr.com) and also on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell)! <3 )


End file.
